The second show of the week, also a part of the Explore Festival, was Ottof. A performance by Moroccan Compagnie O, led by Bouchra Ouizguen. It’s a dance company, although I would classify Ottof more as movement theatre, also using voice, than a pure dance performance.

Compagnie O was formed by Bouchra when she met a number of women performing a the night club near her house in Marrakech. They are aïtas, older, female performers who sing and dance at parties and gatherings. Admired there for their freedom in performing, that same attitude gets them judged outside, in their regular life.

As Bouchra works with these women, they explore attitudes. Both of the women themselves and that of society towards them. Ottof, which means worker ants, explores the dichotomy between their home life, inner life and public life.

The beginning feels heavy. Very slow and stilted as, one by one, the four women get on stage and start moving. They are dressed in long, traditional, robes that restrict their movement. Their legs strain against the fabric as their arms try to fly away. Once they’re all on stage, they stop. Facing each other they scream. To me, coming across as a protest against the confines of society.

After, they loosen up. Almost literally. Getting rid of their outer gaments they show the colourful and modern clothes they wear underneath. Spandex pants, tight tops, on their older and not traditionally beautiful bodies, they dance provocatively. Engaging the audience in that, as they would when performing in clubs and at parties. The sexuality is comically exaggerated, it is clear the women enjoy being funny.

During this, there’s two intermezzos as two of the women perform a spoken word piece. Both, as far as known, autobiographical and written by themselves. Both pieces spoken in Berber, untranslated to keep the original feeling. We were, however, supplied with a translation on paper.

One piece is about love, unconditional love for a daughter, love above everything else, being love itself. It felt very passionate and all encompassing. The second piece was about happiness. Specifically about not having any. Detailing the hardships she survived in her youth, her marriage, children, work. How she lived through all that without really feeling any happiness. And now that she is old and no longer even has her beauty, all she wants is to find just a sliver of happiness.The deliverywas quite harrowing and full of grief.

The performance ends with them transitioning from the sexually provocative into the frantic. Running around, screaming, waving their arms. In a sort of wild run to freedom while giving society a big fuck you.

Before the show there was an introduction that told us more about the company, about Bouchra, a bit about Moroccan society and the interplay between the three. Afterwards there was an interview/conversation with Bouchra. It was really interresting to hear her speak about her ideas and their work.

It’s show time again, literally. I have two performances this week I’m attending. The first one was Under Siege by the Yang LiPing Contemporary Dance Company. It is part of the Explore Festival, wherein seven theaters in the Netherlands band together to program a few foreign shows for a small tour. The idea is to pick things form outside western society and to give us a glimpse of the (modern) art that is made there. And then specifically not in a way to exoticise it, but to break stereotypes and let us open our minds to other ways of thinking and seeing. And in that realising that within, were not that different.

On the whole I have two words for it: fucking magnificent.

The performance transcends just dance, it becomes dance theatre. Telling a coherent story in an uninterrupted hour and forty minutes adding in live music and narration. The dancers in the company come from all kinds of dance backgrounds. Some from the very traditional Beijing Opera, some from more martial arts inspired forms, some form classical ballet and some from modern contemporary dance. All these forms are used throughout the performance.

The story is that of war and conquest where one dynasty is about to be superseded by another in China two thousand years ago. There’s a group of dancers playing soldiers, two emperors, the chief advisor to one of them and the concubine of the other. Plus two musicians, the narrator and the paper cutting lady.

This lady sits at the edge of the stage during the entire show cutting things out of paper. Sometimes Chinese characters to serve as marker or narration, sometimes shapes. The narrator actually speaks. He tells us the story, in Chinese. Luckily there’s two screens to the sides that give basic translations of what he’s saying.

The flow of the story takes us from the beginnings of war all the way to end with the last man standing. We see meetings between the one emperor and his advisor, between the other emperor and the advisor, between the first emperor and his dark side. These are all striking duo dance performances, very physical towards each other.

Then there’s mass dances when battles are performed. These incorporate Kung Fu moves with a lot of jumps and kicks.

The concubine gets to do a solo piece. Taking their cue from the Beijng Operatic tradition, she is played by a man. The solo follows her from entering near naked through being dressed until fully dressed and dancing. This is a more stilted piece, but as such it has a commanding presence.

After the main battles and confrontations it is time for the climax. The stage is covered in red feathers to signify the final battlefield. A mass battle is ‘fought’ resulting in basically mass slaughter for the army of the one emperor. Knowing there is no way they’ll get out of it alive, he meets with his concubine one last time. In a moving, and haunting, performance, they say goodbye and then she kills herself. Grief stricken the emperor holds her before leaving to face his final battle.

And in that final battle, he succumbs to the other emperor, who then gets killed by his advisor. Leaving him the sole survivor and new emperor of a new dynasty.

In between all these dance pieces the narrator appears to inform us of what is going on in a flowing Chinese that varies from talking to shouting to a certain sing song quality.

The stage design was elaborate without being overbearing. On the ceiling were four large blocks holding thousands of (fake) scissors. These would move about during the show, and sometimes come down to stage level. Other than this, the background was basic. The soldiers and narrator were likewise basic. The emperors wore intricately decorated garments, but with a basic shape. The only other points of extravagance were the head pieces worn by the advisor and the other emperor, and the outfit of the other emperor during his solo.

I spent the entirety of the performance on the edge of my seat, wholly captivated by what I was seeing. I’ve been taken in by a performance before, but never in such a manner. In China, Yang LiPing is a celebrity with several theaters. This show there is done with a multitude of performers more. Maybe one day I’ll be able to see it like that.

Before the show I attended the introduction which told us a bit more about Yang LiPing and the company, about the story and about how the show came to be. Especially since they had to make a special travel version of it to be able to take it on tour.

Afterwards there was a small interview with two of the dancers. That being the concubine and her emperor. It was tricky as they only spoke Chinese, the interpreter spoke decent english but heavily accented so sometimes hard to follow, and the lady doing the interview wasn’t much better in english either. So I didn’t really get a lot out of it, but it was clear to see that the guy playing the emperor was really passionate about dance and the show.

I didn’t catch their names, but I understand both of them are award winning dancers in China. That I believe right away. The performances of all four main characters were fantastic, but the losing Emperor especially stood out. His control over his body is amazing.

In the picture below, the black person in the middle is dark side of the winning emperor. On his left the advisor, the losing emperor, the concubine, the winning emperor and the narrator.

Continuing on with what seems to be the theme of this week: do all the things! Wednesday Nienke came by for lunch and trying on some of Mom’s left over clothes I’d kept apart. She had made soup, I made an omelette and bought tasty bread and fried fish. We were so stuffed after that 😀

Around two I (gently) kicked Nienke out, I was getting so sleepy. Besides getting home late the night before, it also took a while to fall asleep and I didn’t sleep well. So after she’d gone, I stretched out on the sofa, set my alarm for a good hour later and was gone in minutes. I woke up on my own a few minutes before the alarm. Monkey then decided that the pillow my head was on would fit him perfectly as well 😀

Taking that as a sign, I got up and got ready to go the city again. This time to go to the movies with Ingrid and her friend Romana. We met up in the centre and headed for cafe De Oude Wacht to eat something. It was cheap but good cafe food. I had satay which came with fries and a good salad. The movie didn’t start until eight, so when it was getting colder after dinner, we traded the cafe terrace for the inside cafe in the cinema for a drink and a cookie.

The movie was a pre-premier of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. We’d all gone to the supermarket before to stock up on a drink and such for during the movie. But it turns out that, as this was an event-thing, we could all pick a bottle of soda and got crisps for during the movie. Good deal 😀

The movie itself was pretty good. The gimmicks are getting old (although the bank robbery is hilarious), but structurally I found this a better movie than the previous one. I liked the throwbacks to the original trilogy with Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, and seeing more of Jack’s past.

I wanted to stay seated throughout the credits but the others we’re more eager to leave. Luckily they (and I, too) had to use the bathroom. I was done quickly, but the ladies’ always has a much longer line. So, fortunately, I was still near the screen when the inevitable after credits scene came on. It was brief, and definitely hints at another sequel. After that, we split up quickly as their buses we’re almost coming. I strolled to the station, taking the opportunity to catch me a great many Pokémon 😀

Yesterday was Ascension Day. And as is tradition, we go to the annual Ascension Day Market in my previous town Eenrum. Ingrid always comes over to go with. This year Nienke and Kim also agreed to go. We convened at my place at ten. The other three then left to go there by car. I went by bike. I decided, two weeks ago, to try exercising again. But the gym and all that doesn’t really work for me. I do like cycling, though. So I installed an app (Strava) and did two rides that first week. The week after I didn’t get around to riding because of a zit on my sit 😀 This week I’m good to go, though. So the trip to the market was to be my first workout of this week. Unfortunately I mistapped and it didn’t record the way to Eenrum.

We met up again and took a gander down the market. We decided to check out one side of the road first, and then at the end turn around and do the other side. That way we would end up back were we started. I bought some new pairs of ankle socks, some plants for the empty pot in the front yard and, as usual, traditional sausage.

Mellien and Bas were also coming, but they came later. So we didn’t get to meet up until we were already halfway on the way back. They joined us for that bit, and at the end we all got something to eat for an impromptu lunch. I’d already had my traditional spring roll and decided on churros for dinner 😀 After that, it was time to go home again as Kim had to work in the afternoon. We split up and I got back on my bike.

For the way back I chose a different route. There’s basically three main ways to get to Eenrum from Winsum (and vice versa). The first two I’d already done and tracked in my first week of using Strava. So now I went for the third route. I knew this was longer, but as it turns out, the difference is 3 km. I made good time, though. Did the 8,2 km in 23 minutes. The others were home before me, but not by much.

Kim and Nienke then went home and Ingrid stayed. We chatted and played board games. First the gold rush edition of Carcassonne. It’s a different version of Carcassonne (versus an expansion). The base rules are the same but the theme is different and it has specialty rules that fit with it. In this case, cities are mountains with gold in it. As you build them, you place gold tokens and can mine for them. At the end, the tokens are turned and scored which is added to your regular score. Because the amount of points on the tokens is hidden until the end, it keeps things exciting. Other difference is that monasteries are, sort of, replaced by named cities where railroads end. You score points when all railroads leading out of the city are finished. The field, prairie in this case, also scores differently. It’s not the amount of completed somethings, but how many Indian settlements or horse herds (drawn on the tiles) are present. I really like this version of the game.

After that we played Rummikub and then decided to do something about dinner. Quick trip to the shop later we had easy food to stick in the oven. We waited it out with a few games of Tea Time (an Alice in Wonderland inspired tile taking game). After dinner we played a quick best-of-three set of Pesten (similar to Crazy Eights). We tied two for two between all games as I won Carcassonne and Rummikub and Ingrid won Tea Time and Pesten. Ingrid then went home.

Today is one of two days during my time off that I had no plans. So this morning I got on my bike again and went for a longer route, 21 km as it turns out. It took me a good 57 minutes. Which is faster already than the first week.

Kim and I went to the opera yesterday. It was Opera Zuid again, but this time they were performing The Barber of Sevilla. I picked Kim up from work and we took a bus to the city centre. We had originally planned to eat at the newly opened La Place. Kim, however, preferred somewhere where they would bring our food. I though that was a splendid idea so we went in search for another place to eat. We picked De Kostery but it was closing, which is weird for a place that loudly displays outside that they serve dinner… We then tried Het Feithhuis. This was a long shot as it’s quite popular and generally requires a reservation. And indeed, they had no table. So we settled on the Drie Gezusters. I’d been there before, but never to eat.

They have a pretty basic, but good, menu. I’d wanted to go for steak but then I spotted Moroccan lamb stew with sweet potato and went for that. It was very tasty. It came with a wedge of water melon, which was a nice refresher at the end. The sides we’re also good: well done fries in the skin, steamed cauliflower and broccoli and some salad. I skipped that last one for I was getting quite full. For dessert I chose a wentelteefje (aka French toast) made from suikerbrood (sugar bread) with cinnamon ice cream and whipped cream. Delicious.

After dinner we made our way to the theater on foot. Joran, our friend from work was also coming with his girlfriend. We met up at the theater. It was their first time at the Schouwburg in Groningen so we showed them some of the places to sit and where to enter to get to their seats.

The opera it self was, musically speaking, very good. The orchestra (Philharmonie Zuidnederland) played very well, and the players were great. The color of voice of the woman singing Rosina (Romie Estèves) was a bit too shrill for my tastes. Technically, though, she was very good. Both Figaro (Luthando Qave) and the Count Almaviva (Juraj Holly) were fantastic.

What I liked less was the staging. Instead of taking the story and playing it as is, the directors modernised it. In was now place in a Spa in Sevilla where the people would come to enjoy luxurious excesses and vices. This had some of the ensemble performers playing sniffing coke of a hand mirror, both supplied by Figaro. Old Doctor Bartolo lives next to this spa. And the old time soldiers become a modern cross between military and private security. This leads to Rosina singing an aria in a bikini and Figaro doing modern dance moves during his.

After the show we briefly met up with Joran again to compare experiences and say goodbye. We were in no particular rush, the train was gone anyway, but they had to leave. We then grabbed a bus back to the station where we had to wait an hour for our train. Luckily the Burger King was open so we indulged in some nuggets and a hot blondie. The train showed up early so we could wait the last fifteen minutes or so in more comfort.

Picture (credit: Joost Milde/Opera Zuid) shows Almaviva on the left in his disguise as Don Alfonso, Rosina being choke held by Doctor Bartolo and Figaro trying to restrain him.

I have a week off, so naturally I’ve spent the past days working my ass off. It started Saturday with sorting out Mom’s shed. It was a bit messy on the shelves and floor. But the worst offender were the three cupboards on the wall. This is where my dad kept his tools and related things. However, he wasn’t very organised, and he hadn’t used any of it in years. In fact, the cabinets were taped shut and transferred over as is when my parents moved here four years ago. Now with Dad gone, it’s slowly time to start going through things. And the shed seemed the easiest to start.

I took out everything in the cabinets and sorted it. First into what could stay, what had be thrown out and what can be given away/sold. I found a ridiculous amount of drill bits. Not just boxed sets, but also many, many loose ones. I kept the three sets that were still complete, and sorted the singles in usable or not. Tossed all unusable, and half of the still usable ones for being all the same. I also found a second jig saw, hidden in a corner, and three complete sets of ratcheting wrenches (same contents)… So yeah, the doubles made it to the pile of to be sold/given away.

After sorting, all the tools and stuff turned out to easily fit in one cupboard. Leaving the other two free for new things. I put stuff related to bicycles and cars in there, as well as odds and ends. Leaving the shelves free for planting pots and Mom’s boxes of Christmas decorations, which we moved down from the storage room in the apartment itself.

Then Sunday I went over there again in the afternoon for project two: Mom’s wardrobe. We went through it all, and ended up with four large bags of clothes and other textiles to be donated. We ordered take out, and after finishing that we also tackled the night stand. The three drawers were filled with stuff. After sorting what to get rid off, I consolidated all the jewelry in fewer boxes. This saved so much space that she can now actually see what she has in the drawers.

Monday we took a break since we had a birthday to go to. My Aunt turned 88. You wouldn’t say, though, if you saw her running about. Sometimes literally. She still lives on her own in a house (not an apartment or something like that), does everything herself and regularly goes everywhere by public transport and walking. She used to babysit the neighbour’s kids. But they are now all high school aged so don’t really need that anymore. However, my aunt helps them (and their mother) with their paper route. For fun 😀

I did start organising and sorting through my own shed in the evening. Inspiration and such. I have three large, heavy, cabinets in there that keep stuff. One of them isn’t very practical, though. It has drawers in the bottom, an open space in the middle, and a small cupboard at the top. However, one of the drawers is missing, and the others are hard to open. And the cupboard is too small to hold many of the things that I need it to hold. So I cleared a path and heaved and heaved and heaved until I had dragged it all the way out and against the wall of the house. I removed the drawers and put in an old rug to turn it into a cat box. The top now holds little lanterns I can hang outside when sitting there and it’s getting darker. This was about all I could accomplish in an evening, so I pushed the rest of the crap back inside and locked up.

Today we did the storage room in the apartment. We started in the morning as I have a date with the opera tonight. I pulled everything out so Mom could vacuum and mop the floor. Then we repeated the precious process. Sorting things into trash, donate and keep. I then put all the stuff for keeps back so she can not only find everything again, but also can move around in there. Which is useful as the room also holds the washer and dryer.

We then planned to drive to the thrift store to donate all our stuff but we ran into one of Mom’s neighbours. She works in a charity shop where people who need it can come, a couple times a year, to pick out clothes. So we gave her all the bags of clothes and textiles and Dad’s shoes. This left a much more manageable pile for the thrift shop. We stopped at my place to pick up some things that I’d found Monday evening and dropped everything off. And I have some time left now to continue with the shed before I have to shower and leave.

Summer has really shown herself today. It was very warm. Too warm to really do anything so I took it easy. Work in the morning, and then read. I finished A Clockwork Orange. It’s a fascinating read. The nadsat Burgess’ uses makes the book difficult to read. You need to often infer the meaning of a word by its context and as such may need to re-read sections. Or refer to the word list in the back as my edition has. The book is sometimes misjudged because it features vivid descriptions of violent encounters. This makes sense as the ultra-violence is something the protagonist not only performs, but also enjoys. And being the narrator, he would revel in it. In the end, though, the violence isn’t the point. The underlying issue is free will and morality. Choosing to be good, versus not being able to be anything but good and struggling with that in your mind.

I then started reading Libriomancer, by Jim Hines. It’s an urban fantasy where the protagonist is able to pull things from books through magic. He and others form a secret society to protect this book magic. However, bad things start happening. As they are wont to do in books. Books also create monsters. Vampires, for example. With the many ways vampires have been described, you also get different kinds of vampires. For instance, there’s the Sanguinarius meyerii, these vampires come from the books of Stephenie Meyer and they sparkle… I’m only a few chapters in but I can tell I’m going to like this. It’s a fantasy book lover’s book, there’s references to books, items from books, and authors all over.

In between I did a little bit of weed pulling in the back yard. Slowly, because of the temperature. And I decided I was finally going to get my hooks sorted.

I’ve wanted a way to keep the back door still when it’s open. So it doesn’t go back and forth when there’s wind. Or closes accidentally leaving a sad Milo outside pawing the glass to get back in. At first I was thinking of some kind of retractable leg. You’d lower it to the ground and then the door gets stuck. But those things are more specialty and harder to find. So I decided on simple hooks.

After weed pulling I grabbed my wallet and bike and headed for the hardware store. I got myself a short hook and a long hook. On the way back I stopped, as usual, at the thrift store. No luck on furniture or items, but luck in books (also as usual). I left with Pillars of the Earth, a Brother Cadfael mystery and a book of Siberian myths and legends.

Once home I waited for evening to come on and the sun to go away some. The short hook was to attach the door to the fence that separates my yard from the neighbours. I eye balled the height and started screwing the small eye in the door. That is kinda tricky to do without a pre-made hole. You don’t really have an easy way to give the needed weight so the screw actually goes in. But, I managed it. Then I screwed the hook into the fence and part one of two was done.

The long hook was meant to attach the door that opens to the door that stays shut. This way I have a middle ground between open and closed. It’s open far enough for the cats to go through and to let air in, but closed enough so it’s not very windy. Because this hook was much longer, it was also much bigger. Which meant it was a bit harder, too, to screw it in. In the end it worked, and I have a door that I can secure.

I texted the pictures to mom, so of course she came to look a little while later 🙂 It was a short but fun visit. It wasn’t until much later, when I went to collect the cats and close the door fully, that I realised something. I’d screwed in the large hook too close to the other door… The other door has an overlapping edge that I forgot to take into account. And that edge couldn’t pass the screw. Nothing to be done but to remove it and screw it in again, 1 cm more to the right. Once that was done, I truly had a door that still worked with hooks that worked 😀

My work sometimes organises cool events and things to do. Today was Taste of Code. An introductory one day workshop teaching basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They had one last year, which was popular, so they did one again. I signed up for it as it sounded like fun. My HTML is pretty good, my CSS is rusty as I haven’t used it in years beyond the occasional tweaking of my template here. But JavaScript is 95% new to me. So I figured I could only learn from it.

Only downside, it was in Amsterdam, and started early. With the program slated to start at 9:00, I had to leave Groningen with the 6:04 train. But there’s no train to Groningen until 6:22… So my poor Mom got chartered to drive me to the city so I could catch the train. We left here at 5:15, which meant I had to get up at 4:45 and was pretty short on sleep. Fortunately that didn’t bother me too much today.

I was nicely on time for the train so I could get some breakfast and coffee to go. No hick-ups along the way this time around, so I arrived exactly as scheduled. There I met up with one of my team mates who had also signed up. We made our way to the building and found where we had to be.

The day seemed to go pretty fast, but it was also intense in a good way. The workshop was given by some people from Codaisseur. The idea was for us to build our own functioning rssreader by the end of the day. The presenter would tell us a little bit about something, along with slides. Then we’d take the things shown, along with extra info and code samples on their github and code. They had several coaches present to help people with questions.

The first parts were easy for me as they were just the HTML base structure and the CSS to go with it. Then we got into JavaScript. We first learned some basics and made a greeting to go at the top of our page that would change depending on time of day. Having thus gotten our fingers wet, we moved on to using YQL to pull up the JSON-object based on the rss feed urls we’d chosen. And then more JavaScript and jQuery to turn that into an actual list of the most recent items in that rss feed.

This was very fun to do. I grasped what we had to do pretty quickly and have built an okay looking and basic functioning rss reader. But there’s still plenty left to learn 😀

Best thing that happened today? My new vacuum cleaner hose arrived. The old one tore. At first I wrapped it in duct tape, but within a week or two that started to fail as well. So I bit the bullet and ordered a new one. It’s extra long and I’m looking forward to the next time I get to use it (which I normally hate).

Monday I took a gander to the hospital. Nothing serious, it was just time for the long awaited fix up on my left side. After my surgery last year it left a small pointy blob on my left side. A dog ear, as the doctor called it. Nothing serious, but it doesn’t look nice. So after the final check-up in June when they were satisfied everything else was fine, they said they’d fix that later. Last month I got a letter that later was now.

The whole process is just a minor surgery under local anesthetic. Mom couldn’t go with me, but my uncle was so he drove me. All in all the waiting took much longer than the actual procedure. That was done in ten minutes. Nothing more than extending the existing cut a little and removing some fatty tissue below before stitching me up again. And with it being dissolvable stitches I don’t even have to come back.

The night before I had been to visit my uncle and aunt. For coffee and to ask my uncle to go with me. While there, their cat, Tommy, decided attention was needed. Unfortunately their coffee table is too low to dive under and snurgle that belly.

Saturday was a lovely day where me and the parents went out to dinner with another of my aunts and uncles and their kids and grandkids in honor of my aunt’s birthday. We went to this steakhouse were they had amazing meat.

Today treated us to good weather, so we had a barbecue over at Mellien & Bas.

In the same vein I hung out with Nienke and Kim yesterday. I went for tea at Nienke’s place, and then later Kim came by here. She made pancakes and we watched Guardians of the Galaxy. I love that movie. And the pancakes were great.

Sunday I had the girls, and their boys, over for dinner. First time in my new house, with my new table and my new chairs 😀

Wednesday it was time for grocery shopping. On the way, Mom and I decided to stop by at my aunt and uncle’s. My aunt was home alone so we joined her for some coffee. Afterwards we made our way to the store and quickly got our groceries done.

And today we were in Harderwijk for my aunt’s 80th birthday. Like a few years ago the party was at the day care facility my cousin works at. This has the advantage of enough space for the adults to sit and chat, and more than enough space and fun toys for the kids to play with. And get a fun picture taken with Dad 😀

Tse Elsewhere

Random Quote

Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking towards Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty To Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them A Good Thumping but secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People travelled with them.